Conservation Monitoring Research Articles

The condition, use and future of the UK's largest accessible dinosaur tracksite at Spyway Quarry, Dorset

Spyway Quarry in Dorset contains >100 tracks made by large sauropod dinosaurs walking across what was a shelly beach in the Early Cretaceous. It is the largest in situ easily accessible UK dinosaur tracksite, a unique location for the public to directly engage with dinosaurs. Following consultation on how best to open and manage the site considering its 'value', longevity, and resources available, it was left unstaffed with the track surface directly accessible. The site has been open to the elements since 2013 and to the public since 2016. We created a new photogrammetric model of the site in 2021, for comparison with an existing 2014 model to identify any changes in the trackway surface and to assess the sustainability of direct public access and weathering to the surface. To understand public use of the site, we installed a visitor counter, compiled social media reviews, and analysed photographs of visitor's movement on the quarry surface. We provide quantitative evidence for exfoliation of the track surface and reduction in the prominence of individual tracks over time primarily due to natural processes. Visitor data suggest ~10,000 people visit annually, and feedback suggests potential improvements to visitor directions and information. We do not recommend substantial changes to the site management plan given resource constraints. Our work highlights the importance of using 3D imaging techniques to document sites upon discovery and thereafter and making these data openly available to all for conservation monitoring, communication and to preserve sites' legacies.

The grammar of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in international conservation: A comparative institutional analysis of four treaty regimes

AbstractOf enduring interest to social scientists is better understanding institutional design. Formal institutions (e.g., treaties and regulations) convey salient governance information, including actors' required, allowed, or prohibited actions, and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to foster institutional compliance with those actions. Yet, few studies have compared these features in international instruments. Addressing this gap, this study utilizes the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework's rule typology and the Institutional Grammar (IG) to compare the stringency and robustness of the formal monitoring and enforcement mechanisms outlined in four conservation treaties: The International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the Convention on Migratory Species, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Doing so revealed the mechanisms' theoretical ability to manage species' appropriation levels and treaty opt‐outs (e.g. reservations/objections), thwart biodiversity losses, and meet their conservation objectives. Findings include (1) identification of verbs and semantic constraints that dilute legally mandated actions to recommended outcomes; (2) a divide among treaty regimes by specificity of the required/permitted/recommended actions assigned to actors; and (3) enforcement mechanisms that require member states to take punitive action against non‐compliant national actors vis‐a‐vis regimes with minimal to no enforcement requirements. This study complements existing institutional design, international relations, and legal scholarship by illustrating the IG's and IAD's utility to describe the treaties' formal monitoring and enforcement design features. It also provides a better understanding of formal international conservation governance which may be useful to policy designers and conservation practitioners.

Baihetan - Jiangsu engineering soil and water conservation online monitoring data system

Baihetan - Jiangsu ± 800kV UHVDC project can improve the power supply stability of the hydropower station, which has very important economic significance. The construction of power transmission projects will affect the water and soil conservation situation along the site. Currently, the commonly used monitoring methods are based on manual data collection with low accuracy and a large workload. Therefore, the government vigorously promotes the development of intelligent water conservancy and strives to improve the digitalization degree of water and soil monitoring systems. In this paper, the traditional chain pin method was improved, using the photosensitive chain pin and ultrasonic chain pin instead of the ordinary chain pin. Then calculated the soil erosion modulus by collecting the soil loss index of the measured point, and uploading it to the cloud for analysis by the radio transmission device, so that the monitor system obtained accurate soil loss data. Finally, the system is applied to the baihetan-Jiangsu soil and water conservation monitoring project, and the monitoring data of soil and water conservation of the two stations are obtained. Combined with the local meteorological conditions, we can analyze the causes of soil and water loss, and give the corresponding prevention measures.

IOT-based smart plant monitoring system using NodeMCU

The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the agriculture industry and enabling farmers to contend with the enormous challenges they face. Livestock monitoring, conservation monitoring, and plant & soil monitoring are the challenges for which IoT can provide solutions. Innovative IoT applications address agricultural issues, enhancing the quality, quantity, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness of production. Today's large and local farms can leverage IoT to remotely monitor sensors detecting soil moisture, crop growth, pests, and control smart connected harvesters and irrigation equipment. This paper aims to monitor soil parameters such as moisture, temperature, and electrical conductivity, and automate the irrigation process. Decision-making is executed through a microcontroller. Users are notified via android apps when there are deviations from expected values, ensuring system health. Greenhouses are controlled environments for plant growth. The main aim of this paper is to design a simple, low-cost, IoT-based system to continuously monitor and control environmental parameters to achieve optimal plant growth and yield.

Validation of a microwave energy meter to non-lethally estimate energetic reserves in adult sturgeon.

Whole-body (WB) energetic reserves influence fish survival, growth, and reproduction but are typically quantified using lethal methods (i.e. proximate analyses) or interpreted through body condition indices. Energetic reserves can impact population dynamics through influences on growth rates, age-at-first-reproductive-maturity, and spawning periodicity at the individual-fish level, especially in long-lived sturgeon species. Therefore, a non-lethal tool to track the energetic reserves of endangered sturgeon populations could inform adaptive management and further our understanding of the sturgeon's biology. The Distell Fatmeter is a microwave energy meter that has been validated to non-lethally estimate energetic reserves in some fish species, but never successfully for sturgeon. Here, stepwise linear regressions were applied to test commonly monitored body metrics and Fatmeter measurements at nine different anatomical sites on captive adult pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus; total length of 790-1015mm; WB lipid of 13.9-33.3%) compared with WB lipid and energy content determined by proximate analyses. Fatmeter measurements alone explained approximately 70% of the variation in WB energetic reserves, which outperformed models considering body metrics alone by a margin of approximately 20%. The top-ranked models based on AICc score (second-order Akaike Information Criterion) included a combination of body metrics and Fatmeter measurements and accounted for up to 76% of the variation in WB lipid and energy. We recommend the incorporation of Fatmeter measurements at a single site located dorsally to the lateral scutes at the posterior end of the fish above the pelvic fins (U-P) into conservation monitoring programs for adult pallid sturgeon (total length [TL] ≥ 790mm; fork length [FL] ≥ 715mm) and the cautious application of Fatmeter measurements for sturgeon between 435 and 790mm TL (375-715mm FL). Measurements at this U-P site combined with body mass explained approximately 75% of the variation in WB lipid and energy.

Comparisons of morphometrics and body condition between two breeding populations of Australian humpback whales

Context The east and west coasts of Australia form the breeding grounds for two of the world’s largest and fastest-growing populations of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). These populations show differences in mean lipid content, fatty acid profiles, and stable isotope values. Aims To determine whether these differences result in variation in nutritional health and physiology between populations, we quantified and compared the morphology, body condition and energetic requirements between the two populations. Methods We used unmanned aerial vehicles to measure body morphometrics (residual of body volume vs length) of humpback whales from May to November in 2017, 2020 and 2021. Key results Morphometric measurements were obtained from 973 humpback whales (119 calves, 249 juveniles, 486 adults, and 119 lactating females). Results showed that the two populations did not differ significantly in their morphology. The average body condition was significantly different for sexually mature reproductive classes, with adults and lactating females on the west coast having a lower body condition, by an average of 7.7 and 11.1 percentage points below the east coast population respectively. All reproductive classes, with the exception of calves followed a similar pattern in body condition loss through the breeding season. Calves on the east coast exhibited a curvilinear relationship with days post-partum, with early and late-migrating calves being in poorer body condition than were those migrating mid-season. In contrast, west coast calves did not significantly change their condition through the breeding season. Conclusions The poorer body condition of sexually mature individuals in the west coast population is concerning, given the overall condition loss during a breeding season. This difference could be influenced by variations in sampling time; however, differences in feeding opportunities, climatic regimes and/or environmental variables may influence the ability of one population to acquire similar amounts of energy. Implications The difference in body condition between these two humpback whale populations highlighted the need to assess populations individually, so as to develop representative levels that can be used for future conservation monitoring and management.

Failure to account for behavioral variability significantly compromises accuracy in indirect population monitoring

AbstractIndirect wildlife population surveying largely depends upon counts of artifacts of behavior (e.g., nests or dung). Likelihood to encounter these artifacts is derived from both artifact production and decay, and variability in production behavior is considered to contribute minimally to inaccuracy in wildlife estimation. Here, we demonstrate how ignoring behavioral variability leads to significant population misestimation, using an example of an endangered ape, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). Until now, a single estimate of nest construction rate has been used to extrapolate bonobo densities, assumed to be broadly representative of bonobo sign production behavior. We estimated nest construction rates across seasons and social groups at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and find nest construction rates in bonobos to be highly variable across populations as well as seasonal within populations. Failure to account for this variability led to degradation in the accuracy of bonobo population density estimates, accounting for a likely overestimation of bonobo numbers by 34%, and at worst as high as 80%. With this example, we demonstrate that failure to account for inter‐ and intrapopulation behavioral variation compromises the ability to estimate both relative and absolute wildlife abundances. We argue that variation in sign production is but one of the several potential ways that behavioral variability can affect conservation monitoring, should be measured across contexts whenever possible, and must be considered in population estimation confidence intervals. With increasing attention to behavioral variability as a potential tool for conservation, conservationists must also account for the impact that behavioral variability can have upon wildlife population estimation. Our results underline the importance of observational research to wildlife monitoring schemes as a critical component of conservation management. We discuss the avenues through which behavioral variability is likely to impact wildlife monitoring accuracy and precision and propose potential approaches for accounting for behavioral variability in wildlife monitoring.

STRATEGI PENANGKARAN PENYU DI UPTD (KPSDKP) KONSERVASI PENGAWASAN SUMBERDAYA KELAUTAN DAN PERIKANAN PROVINSI SUMATERA BARAT

The study was carried out at the Regional Technical Implementation Unit (RTIU) Conservation Monitoring of Marine and Fishery Resources (CMOMFS) of West Sumatera Province. The observation was conducted from January 1st to January 30th 2020. Measurements of sand samples in semi-natural nets and water samples in rearing ponds were conducted ex-situ. The research consisted of several parameters such as humidiy, temperature, depth and diameters of semi-natural nets as well as salinity, pH and water temperature of the rearing pond. Based on the observations, it was found that turtle breeding technique consisted of several stages including, monitoring of the coast, ensuring the depth and diameters of nets, incubation of eggs, hatching eggs, taking the hatchlings from semi-natural nets, nursery hatchlings, feeding hatchlings, rearing hatchlings and turtles and realesing hatchlings. The results showed that the value of humadity, temperature, dept and diameter of semi-natural nets respectively ranged between 4% - 6%, 28 - 35 0C, 40-60 cm and 20 cm. Meanwhile, the value of salinity, temperature and pH of rearing pond water ranged between 13 - 14 ppm, 27 - 28 0C and 7-8. The turtle breeding tecniques were in accordance with the guidelines for turtle conservation and had been generally established. The result of turtle rearing pond water quality measurements were in accordance with the water quality standards according to KepMenLH No. 51 in 2004 concerning Seawater Quality Standards, especially for the categoy of Marine Biota.Keywords: Strategy, Conservation, Turtle, CMOMFS

Clavis: An open and versatile identification key format.

The skills and knowledge needed to recognize and classify taxa are becoming increasingly scarce in the scientific community. At the same time, it is clear that these skills are strongly needed in biodiversity monitoring for management and conservation, especially when carried out by citizen scientists. Formalizing the required knowledge in the form of digital identification keys is one way of making such knowledge more available for professional and amateur observers of biodiversity. In this paper we describe Clavis, an open and versatile data format for capturing the knowledge required for taxon identification through digital keys, allowing for a level of detail beyond that of any current key format. We present the format independently from any particular implementation, as our aim is for Clavis to serve as a basis for interoperable tools and interfaces serving different needs and actors.

Country-wide genetic monitoring over 21 years reveals lag in genetic recovery despite spatial connectivity in an expanding carnivore (Eurasian otter, Lutra lutra) population.

Numerous terrestrial mammal species have experienced extensive population declines during past centuries, due largely to anthropogenic pressures. For some species, including the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), environmental and legal protection has more recently led to population growth and recolonization of parts of their historic ranges. While heralded as conservation success, only few such recoveries have been examined from a genetic perspective, i.e. whether genetic variability and connectivity have been restored. We here use large-scale and long-term genetic monitoring data from UK otters, whose population underwent a well-documented population decline between the 1950s and 1970s, to explore the dynamics of a population re-expansion over a 21-year period. We genotyped otters from across Wales and England at five time points between 1994 and 2014 using 15 microsatellite loci. We used this combination of long-term temporal and large-scale spatial sampling to evaluate 3 hypotheses relating to genetic recovery that (i) gene flow between subpopulations would increase over time, (ii) genetic diversity of previously isolated populations would increase and that (iii) genetic structuring would weaken over time. Although we found an increase in inter-regional gene flow and admixture levels among subpopulations, there was no significant temporal change in either heterozygosity or allelic richness. Genetic structuring among the main subpopulations hence remained strong and showed a clear historical continuity. These findings highlight an underappreciated aspect of population recovery of endangered species: that genetic recovery may often lag behind the processes of spatial and demographic recovery. In other words, the restoration of the physical connectivity of populations does not necessarily lead to genetic connectivity. Our findings emphasize the need for genetic data as an integral part of conservation monitoring, to enable the potential vulnerability of populations to be evaluated.

Pathogen surveillance and epidemiology in endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni).

Peninsular bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) are found exclusively in Southern California and Baja Mexico. They are federally endangered due to multiple threats, including introduced infectious disease. From 1981 - 2017, we conducted surveillance for 16 pathogens and estimated population sizes, adult survival, and lamb survival. We used mixed effects regression models to assess disease patterns at the individual and population levels. Pathogen infection/exposure prevalence varied both spatially and temporally. Our findings indicate that the primary predictor of individual pathogen infection/exposure was the region in which an animal was captured, implying that transmission is driven by local ecological or behavioral factors. Higher Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae seropositivity was associated with lower lamb survival, consistent with lambs having high rates of pneumonia-associated mortality, which may be slowing population recovery. There was no association between M. ovipneumoniae and adult survival. Adult survival was positively associated with population size and parainfluenza-3 virus seroprevalence in the same year, and orf virus seroprevalence in the previous year. Peninsular bighorn sheep are recovering from small population sizes in a habitat of environmental extremes, compounded by infectious disease. Our research can help inform future pathogen surveillance and population monitoring for the long-term conservation of this population.

Yield Monitoring for Profitability Mapping, On‐Farm Research, and Precision Conservation

Yield‐monitoring data can figure in consequential decisions that make a difference in the farm’s bottom line. Nowadays, most harvesters are equipped with yield‐monitoring technology. Some farmers are using yield maps to develop variable‐rate seeding and nutrient prescriptions while others have been reluctant to use the technology. This article will discuss using yield data for on‐farm decisions, calibrating yield monitors, and cleaning, managing, and standardizing data. This article focuses primarily on corn and soybean grown in the Midwest. But yield monitors are also used in harvesting other grain crops and are standard on new cotton pickers and sugarcane harvesters, so this discussion also applies to those crops. Earn 1.5 CEUs in Crop Management by reading the article and taking the quiz at https://web.sciencesocieties.org/Learning‐Center/Courses.

Air Quality Monitoring for Preventive Conservation of the Built Heritage Deteriorated by Salt Crystallization

The Santo Domingo Diocesan School (Orihuela, SE Spain) is a singular case study that relates air quality monitoring and stone conservation. The monument suffers severe damage due to salt crystallization by rising damp, which is related to the indoor environment dynamics, high groundwater salt content, and microstructure, the building’s porous stone (biocalcarenite). Results revealed that 222Rn concentration in indoor air is low due to the building’s high ventilation rate, despite the medium-low geogenic radon potential in the area. Wavelets analysis showed that ventilation is caused by outdoor and indoor temperature variations and directly affects the 222Rn and CO2 dynamics inside the church. CO2, as well as relative humidity (RH), presented periodicities with intermediate frequencies (5–8 days) related to visits. These RH and temperature (T) variations intensified the salt damage by increasing the frequency of dissolution-crystallization cycles. The mineralogical characterization and geochemical calculations concluded that chlorides (halite and sylvite), sulfates (thenardite, epsomite, hexahydrite and aphthitalite) and nitrates (niter) present from dissolution forms to whiskers and hopper-type morphologies. This indicates high saturation values and, therefore, higher crystallization pressure values within the porous media of the biocalcarenite. On the contrary, the near-equilibrium crystal shape and incongruent precipitation reaction for humberstonite suggest a lower alteration for this salt on the building stone.

Clavis: An open and versatile identification key format

The skills and knowledge needed to recognize and classify taxa are becoming increasingly scarce, as research and management face a “taxonomic impediment”, where taxonomic knowledge is gradually disappearing from the scientific community (Engel et al. 2021). At the same time, it is clear that these skills are strongly needed in biodiversity monitoring for management and conservation, especially when carried out by citizen scientists. Formalizing the required knowledge in the form of digital identification keys is one way of making such knowledge more available for professional and amateur observers of biodiversity. Having a fully open and well-defined, platform-independent format is essential in ensuring that identification keys and the tools needed to display and create them remain both interoperable, interpretable across platforms, and freely available to all. A number of digital identification key formats exist (Dallwitz 1980, Identic Pty Ltd. 2022), but these are limited in what they can represent, their ease of use, openness, etc. A well-defined, open format addressing this alleviates the technical burden in capturing taxonomic knowledge for future use. With this poster, we present Clavis, a modern data format schema for capturing knowledge required for taxon identification through digital keys, allowing for a level of detail beyond that of any current key format (Koch et al. 2022). Clavis is fully open and supports multilingualism, geographical information, extended documentation and metadata, external services, non-binary characteristics, and more.

Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring and Estimation in AIoT for Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation

Deteriorating water quality leads to the freshwater biodiversity crisis. The interrelationships among water quality parameters and the relationships between these parameters and taxa groups are complicated in affecting biodiversity. Nevertheless, due to the limited types of Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors available on the market, a large number of chemical and biological parameters still rely on laboratory tests. With the latest advancement in Artificial intelligence and the IoT (AIoT), this technique can be applied to real-time monitoring of water quality, and further conserving biodiversity. In this article, we conducted a comprehensive literature review on water quality parameters that impact the biodiversity of freshwater and identified the top-10 crucial water quality parameters. Among these parameters, the interrelationships between the IoT measurable parameters and IoT unmeasurable parameters are estimated using a general regression neural network (GRNN) model and a multivariate polynomial regression (MPR) model based on historical water quality monitoring data. Conventional field water sampling and in-lab experiments, together with the developed IoT-based water quality monitoring system were jointly used to validate the estimation results along an urban river in Hong Kong. The GRNN can successfully distinguish the abnormal increase of parameters against normal situations. For the MPR model of degree 8, the coefficients of determination results are 0.89, 0.78, 0.87, and 0.81 for NO3-N, BOD <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</sub> , PO4, and NH3-N, respectively. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed systems and models were validated against laboratory results and the overall performance is acceptable with most of the prediction errors smaller than 0.2 mg/L, which provides insights into how AIoT techniques can be applied to pollutant discharge monitoring and other water quality regulatory applications for freshwater biodiversity conservation.

Development of low-cost RFID sensors dedicated to air pollution monitoring for preventive conservation

Monitoring of atmospheric pollutants is a key point for preventive conservation since these species are known to impact the integrity of many artifacts including metals, papers, pigment and textiles. The problem can be amplified in closed environments, like in exhibition rooms and showcases, where temperature and relative humidity gradients and levels can introduce additional micro-climatic problems. One objective of the EU-SensMat project concerns the development of low cost and low visual nuisance sensors sensitive to these pollutants, making them affordable for all museums including small ones. For this purpose, the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology was considered to produce air-quality sensors based on reactive metallic dosimeter. Besides the low cost, they can be easily integrated to other existing RFID applications such as identification tasks since the interrogation is made with a commercial UHF-RFID reader. The description and the main features of these sensors are discussed in this paper. Moreover, as it will be shown, the subsequent chemical analysis of the sensitive part of the sensors provide useful information to determine the origin of the pollutants.

Understanding External Influences on Target Detection and Classification Using Camera Trap Images and Machine Learning.

Using machine learning (ML) to automate camera trap (CT) image processing is advantageous for time-sensitive applications. However, little is currently known about the factors influencing such processing. Here, we evaluate the influence of occlusion, distance, vegetation type, size class, height, subject orientation towards the CT, species, time-of-day, colour, and analyst performance on wildlife/human detection and classification in CT images from western Tanzania. Additionally, we compared the detection and classification performance of analyst and ML approaches. We obtained wildlife data through pre-existing CT images and human data using voluntary participants for CT experiments. We evaluated the analyst and ML approaches at the detection and classification level. Factors such as distance and occlusion, coupled with increased vegetation density, present the most significant effect on DP and CC. Overall, the results indicate a significantly higher detection probability (DP), 81.1%, and correct classification (CC) of 76.6% for the analyst approach when compared to ML which detected 41.1% and classified 47.5% of wildlife within CT images. However, both methods presented similar probabilities for daylight CT images, 69.4% (ML) and 71.8% (analysts), and dusk CT images, 17.6% (ML) and 16.2% (analysts), when detecting humans. Given that users carefully follow provided recommendations, we expect DP and CC to increase. In turn, the ML approach to CT image processing would be an excellent provision to support time-sensitive threat monitoring for biodiversity conservation.

Suitability of the global forest cover change map to assess climatic megadisturbance impacts on remote tropical forests

The occurrence and combination of extreme meteorological events may lead to severe (megadisturbance) impacts on conserved forests and protected areas all over the world. Recent research has shown that megadisturbance impacts (after the events of hurricanes and prolonged drought) may be detected in subtropical forest cover using changes in spectral indices derived from satellite imagery. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of megadisturbance on forest types of the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, Republic of Cuba in the 2001–2017 time-period. The Global Forest Cover Change (GFCC, available on the Global Forest Watch website) product was validated and indicated the prominence of megadisturbance for year 2016 (85% of the total disturbed area), largely associated with the Hurricane Matthew event. A robust estimator of the disturbed forest area, based on GFCC-stratified sampled verification sites, suggests that 11,110 ± 1,771 hectares of forest (~ 16% of the Park’s total area) was affected by megadisturbance between 2001 and 2017. In 2017, about 1276 hectares of forests were impacted, presumably related to a long-lasting effect of megadisturbance due to Hurricane Matthew and prolonged droughts in previous years. Four types of tropical rainforests (especially lowland rainforest and submountainous sclerophyllous rainforest on serpentinite), that cover 43% of the National Park, accounted for about 85% of the impacts by megadisturbance. The Easternmost portion of these forests should be prioritized for conservation monitoring and possibly for forest restoration strategies. This study contributes to establishing methodological guidelines for rapid environmental assessment of remote, tropical protected areas facing the impacts of extreme meteorological events and climate change.

변산반도국립공원 꽝꽝나무군락의 생태적 특성

In order to preserve and restore the habitats of Ilex crenata community distributed in Byeonsanbando National Park, the ecological characteristics of flora and major vegetation were investigated centered on the community distribution area. A total of 36 taxa with 22 families, 21 genera, 32 species, and 4 variants, were investigated in the vicinity of the Ilex crenata community. At close distances centered on the area around the Ilex crenata community, the vegetation was found to be a mountain coniferous forest called Pinus densiflora-Quercus serrata community(35° 39′ 18.62″ north latitude, 126° 34′ 56.70 east longitude), at an elevation of 85m to 95m above sea level, an inclination of 10° to 15°, and clustered around the south and southwest slopes. In the Tree-1 layer, there are Pinus densiflora, Quercus serrata, Quercus variabilis, and Prunus serrulata var. pubescens. In the Tree-2 layer, there are Quercus serrata, Quercus variabilis, Prunus serrulata var. pubescens, Styrax japonicus, and Acer pseudo-sieboldianum. In the Shrub layer, there are Ilex crenata, Rhododendron mucronulatum, Lespedeza maximowiczii, Fraxinus sieboldiana, Smilax china, Lindera obtusiloba, Fraxinus rhynchophylla, Rhododendron schlippenbachii, Lindera glauca, Juniperus rigida var. rigida. In the past, before the Buam Dam was built, the surrounding area was a rice paddy field and farmland, but after the Buam Dam was completed, due to changes in the climatic environment, such as fog and humidity, which occurred around the Buan Dam, It is predicted that changes in species composition within the community will appear as the blooming of Quercus serrata increases in the Tree-1 layer and Tree-2 layer, as Fraxinus sieboldiana, Fraxinus rhynchophylla, Lindera obtusiloba, etc. appear in the shrub layer, and Sasa borealis Indigofera kirilowii, Carex lanceolata, and Fraxinus sieboldiana, etc. appear in the herb layer. The distribution area of Ilex crenata community was measured to be 384㎡, the height of Ilex crenata was in the range of 2.2 to 2.5m, and the diameter of the rhizome of Ilex crenata community was Ø48.5mm+39.4mm+46.9mm+37.3mm, It is considered to be in good growth condition due to the stable management and protection of the colony area. In addition, as it is expected that Ilex crenata community will gradually spread as a constituent species of the shrub layer and the herbaceous layer in the pine and Ilex crenata community communities near the native habitats of the black oak community, a detailed investigation into these areas and monitoring for continuous conservation and restoration are needed in the future.

The Grain for Green Project in Contiguous Poverty-Stricken Regions of China: A Nature-Based Solution

The Grain for Green Project (GGP) is one of many Nature-based Solutions (NbS), which aims to address the challenge of ecological restoration while providing livelihood security for farmers in poverty-dominated regions. Evaluating the success of such a project can prove difficult. Here, we choose the contiguous poverty-stricken regions (CPSR) of China to study the multiple benefits of the GGP in the context of NbS. We collect ecological-monitoring data, forest-resources data, and socioeconomic data and use them in a distributed method with relevant indicators, to evaluate the ecological benefits of the GGP. Additionally, the socioeconomic benefits are evaluated using questionnaire-based surveys. Our results showed that the ecological benefits of the GGP in the CPSR were 5.6 × 1011 RMB/a in 2017, with the proportion of each ecosystem’s services being 27.1% (water conservation), 21.1% (biodiversity conservation), 18.4% (purification of the atmospheric environment), 13.1% (soil conservation), 12.9% (carbon sequestration and oxygen release), 5.4% (forest protection), and 1.6% (nutrient accumulation). In terms of socioeconomic benefit, the GGP changed the production methods of farmers, which resulted in income growth, with an average increase of 5100 RMB/a per household. In the context of NbS, ecological conservation, and restoration, the accurate and systematic monitoring of the socioeconomic and ecological benefits will become more important for government decisions.